A CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF MODERN GENERIC CONCEPTS IN LICHENOLOGY |
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| Institution: | 1. School of Geosciences, China University of Petroleum, Qingdao 266580, China;2. Laboratory for Marine Mineral Resources, Qingdao National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology, Qingdao 266071, China;3. Key Laboratory of Marine Geology and Environment, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Qingdao 266071, China;4. Geodynamic Modelling Section, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany;5. Institute of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany;6. Institute of Deep-sea Science and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Sanya 572000, China |
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| Abstract: | After a brief historical survey, some current trends in the delimitation of lichen genera are discussed. A widespread tendency is that of elevating any supposedly monophyletic group of species to genus rank. As the term ‘ monophyletic ’ has no lower limit, this is likely to result in an explosive inflation of new genera, in a severe loss of the information carried by generic names and in a high degree of nomenclatural disorder. Five criteria are proposed for the acceptance or rejection of new generic segregates: (1) DNA testing for monophyly, (2) phylo-genetic analysis, (3) number of characters used, (4) number of species considered, (5) information content of the new splittings. Upon a critical analysis of several recent generic segregations, a more flexible approach to taxonomic ranks is recommended, and particularly, when most of the suggested criteria are not fulfilled, a more frequent use of the subgeneric rank, which does not imply name changes. |
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